1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a touch-enabled terminal having a touch screen. More particularly, the present invention relates to a touch-enabled terminal and a keypad providing method for the same that present currently enterable characters of a virtual keypad in a readily viewable way during data entry through the virtual keypad.
2. Description of the Related Art
Rapid advances in communication and semiconductor technologies have led to the popularization of various types of mobile terminals. Also, high-end mobile terminals have evolved into mobile convergence devices supporting heterogeneous functions originating from distinct fields. For example, mobile communication terminals may support not only regular communication functions related to voice calls and messages but also multimedia functions related to mobile broadcast reception via DMB or DVB, music playback using an MP3 player, photography, Internet access, and a dictionary search.
Recently, numerous mobile terminals have become touch enabled. A touch-enabled terminal has a touch screen capable of both displaying data and inputting data. In such a touch-enabled terminal, characters may be entered through a virtual keypad displayed on the touch screen. The virtual keypad includes virtual buttons, each of which is mapped to one or more characters. Hence, for character input, the user may have to touch the same button several times until a desired character is displayed.
A standard touch-enabled terminal simply displays one or more characters mapped to virtual buttons of the virtual keypad. When entering data, the user tends to look at buttons of the virtual keypad rather than a display zone in which an entered character is displayed. In such a case, the user may have to remember the number of touches made on a particular button in order to enter a correct one of multiple characters assigned to the button. In addition, owing to imperfect touch recognition of the touch-enabled terminal, touching a button may not result in entering an assigned character. Hence, although remembering the number of touches made on a particular button, the user may still fail to enter a desired character because of a touch recognition error.
For example, when three characters are assigned to each button of the virtual keypad, to enter a second one of three characters assigned to a particular button, the user has to touch the button two times consecutively. However, during data entry, the user may fail to touch the button exactly two times by touching only once or three times. Furthermore, even though the user has touched the button exactly two times, an incorrect character may be entered owing to a touch recognition error.